5 
061 


HE  CLAIMS  OF 
^DUSTRIAL  ART 


/4rt 


V 


THE  CLAIMS  OF 
INDUSTRIAL  ART 

Considered  with  Reference  to  Certain 
Prevalent  Tendencies  in  Education 

AN  ADDRESS  BY  LESLIE   W.  MILLER 

Principal  of  the  School  of  Industrial  Art  of  the  Pennsyl- 
vania Museum,  BEFORE  THE  PHILOBIBLON 
CLUB  OF  PHILADELPHIA,  FEBRUARY  27,  1908 


PRINTED   AND  PUBLISHED    BY  THE    SCHOOL 

OF  PRINTING,  NORTH  END  UNION,  BOSTON 

1908 


Composition  and  presswork  by  Apprentices  in  the  School 
of  Printing,  North  End  Union,  Boston,  June,  1908 


THE  CLAIMS  OF  INDUSTRIAL  ART 

Considered  with  Reference  to  Certain  Prevalent  Tendencies 
in  Edtication  ::  ::  ::  ::  BY  LESLIE  W.  MILLER 


IT  is  all  so  new,  this  conception  of  art  as  some- 
thing compatible  with  industrial  aims  and  meth- 
ods, that  explanation  and  insistence  are  still  in 
order.  It  is  not  so  many  years  since  the  very 
name  of  industrial  art  was  a  term  of  reproach,  if  not  of 
contempt,  to  great  numbers  of  fairly  intelligent  and 
perfectly  well-meaning  men  ;  while  to  many  more  the 
combination  of  words  which  constitute  the  expression 
conveyed  no  meaning,  but  seem  rather  a  contradiction 
of  terms,  out  of  which  no  sense  could  be  made.  I  am 
sorry  to  say  that  there  are  persons  now  alive  on  whose 
minds  this  impression  still  continues  to  be  made  ;  and 
even  where  the  case  is  not  so  bad  as  that,  there  are 
vast  areas  of  intelligence  in  which  the  real  meaning 
of  the  words  is  very  far  from  being  accepted,  and 
the  significance  of  the  idea  which  they  embody  very 
far  from  being  appreciated  or  understood. 

To  how  many  of  us,  even  now,  who  are  attracted 
by  that  magic  word,  art.  does  not  the  notion  come  at 
once  that  here  is  the  most  exclusive,  and  exceptional, 
of  human  things ;  the  thing,  that  is,  which  only  the 
smallest  possible  "  remnant "  can  reasonably  be  ex- 
pected to  know  anything  about,  and  in  the  actual 
practice  of  which  only  a  minute  fraction  even  of  this 
remnant  can  hope  to  succeed. 

I  shall  never  forget  a  remark — very  sensible  from 
one  point  of  view,  but  very  discouraging  from  an- 
other— that  was  made  to  me  during  my  student  days 
by  the  dear  old  professor  to  whose  wise  counsel  we 
owed  more  than  to  almost  any  other  influence.  "  If," 

[3] 


2065681 


THE  CLAIMS  OF  INDUSTRIAL  ART 

he  said,  at  the  opening  of  the  school  one  year,  "at 
the  end  of  half  a  dozen  years  we  can  point  to  half  a 
dozen  men  who  amount  to  something  worth  while, 
we  shall  think  we  have  done  very  well."  Now  this 
was  all  right  as  far  as  the  purpose  of  the  school  which 
he  had  at  heart  was  concerned  ;  but,  frankly,  I  could 
not  help  thinking  more  about  the  ninety-nine  that 
were  left  out  of  his  reckoning  than  of  the  one  who 
was  counted  on  to  justify  the  existence  of  the  school. 
And  I  hope  this  was  not  altogether  owing  to  the  fact 
that  I  was  more  or  less  conscious  of  belonging  to  the 
ninety-nine  class  myself.  For,  after  all,  this  larger 
class  has  its  rights  and  its  reasons  for  existing  quite  as 
much  as  the  more  exceptional  one,  and  it  seemed  to 
me  a  not  unworthy  aim  to  try  to  make  any  school 
whose  direction  might  be  entrusted  to  me  do  a  good 
deal  more  for  the  ninety-nine  who  had  no  hope  of 
reaching  the  solitary  pinnacle,  than  to  leave  them 
more  discouraged,  and  possibly  more  disqualified  for 
the  real  work  before  them,  than  they  were  before 
they  came  under  my  influence.  Besides,  we  must 
not  forget  that  the  bulk  of  the  world's  work  has  got 
to  be  done  by  these  more  moderately  endowed  ones, 
if  it  is  ever  done  at  all,  and  the  function  of  the  school 
is  surely  quite  as  much  the  development  of  efficiency 
in  the  many  as  the  discovery  of  exceptional  endow- 
ments in  the  few. 

That  was  more  than  thirty  years  ago,  but  such  ex- 
perience as  I  have  gained  in  the  meantime  has  had 
the  effect  of  confirming  the  conviction  that  was  forced 
upon  me  then,  and  I  am  sure  that  whatever  modest 
service  I  have  been  able  to  render  as  a  teacher  in  the 
years  that  have  elapsed  since  that  time,  has  been  in 
the  direction  of  helping  men  and  women  all  along 

[4] 


THE  CLAIMS  OF  INDUSTRIAL  ART 

the  line,  instead  of  being  much  concerned  with  the 
very  few  who  probably  get  on  with  their  particular 
work  quite  as  much  in  spite  of  the  schools  as  by  their 
help. 

Now,  all  this  may  be  very  true,  and  the  question 
still  remain,  What  has  that  got  to  do  with  art  ?  You 
may  say,  as  some  people  certainly  think,  that  the  in- 
dustrial aim  in  education  may  be  legitimate  and  help- 
ful, but  art  is  another  matter  altogether.  Well,  that 
brings  us  to  the  main  point  at  once.  What  is  art, 
anyway,  and  what  is  the  secret  of  its  magical  charm, 
that  makes  everybody  want  to  study  it,  whether  they 
have  the  ghost  of  a  chance  of  succeeding  as  painters 
or  sculptors  or  not  ? 

It  is  probably  a  conservative  estimate  to  assume 
that  at  least  10,000  young  men  and  women  are  at 
present  seriously  devoting  the  best  years  of  their  life 
to  the  study  of  art  here  in  America,  and  that  5,000 
more  American  students  are  enrolled  in  the  art 
schools  of  Europe.  The  number  of  those  who  think, 
or  whose  fond  parents  think,  that  they  have  a  genu- 
ine call  of  the  spirit  in  this  direction,  and  even  of 
those  who  are  supposed  to  be  studying  for  the  pro- 
fession in  minor  schools,  or  by  themselves,  "from 
nature"  and  all  that,  is  of  course  very  much  larger 
than  the  figures  I  have  given,  and  I  am  sure  my  esti- 
mate is  well  over  on  the  safe  side.  Now,  everybody 
knows,  and  everybody  says,  that  it  is  as  plain  as  the 
sun  at  noonday  that  there  is  not  the  slightest  chance 
that  more  than  an  insignificant  fraction  of  these 
15,000  pupils  will  ever  do  anything  that  can  be  taken 
very  seriously  as  the  practice  of  an  artist's  profes- 
sion. One  of  the  most  pathetic  figures  of  our  time  is 
the  very  familiar  one  of  the  well  trained,  and  often 

[5] 


THE  CLAIMS  OF  INDUSTRIAL  ART 

very  talented,  artist  for  whom  there  seems  to  be  noth- 
ing to  do  ;  and  if  this  is  true  of  a  considerable  part  of 
the  best  men  we  have,  how  pitiful  does  the  picture  be- 
come if  it  is  made  to  include  the  vast  majority  who 
never  make  any  mark  at  all ! 

The  question  that  is  always  asked  is,  What  becomes 
of  them  ?  and  the  answer  is  that  they  find  their 
place  ultimately,  if  they  find  it  at  all,  in  the  industrial 
arts,  the  field  of  which  is  large  enough  to  include  all 
forms  of  production  into  which  the  element  of  taste 
enters  as  an  important  consideration.  This  means 
that  the  field  is  practically  unbounded  and  the  oppor- 
tunity for  service  which  it  offers  is  practically  unlim- 
ited, and  our  pity  for  the  failures,  on  the  one  hand, 
gives  place  to  wonder,  on  the  other,  why  we  have  not 
paid  more  and  earlier  attention  to  the  adjustment 
that  was  sure  to  be  demanded,  and  to  directing  more  of 
this  artistic  energy  into  profitable  and  ever-open  chan- 
nels by  ways  less  devious  and  less  wasteful  than  those 
provided  by  disappointment  and  despair.  In  other 
words,  why  not  frankly  accept  at  the  outset  the  truth 
that  is  sure  to  have  to  be  faced  sooner  or  later,  and 
insist  that  industrial  aims  should  be  recognized  and 
emphasized  throughout  at  least  all  the  earlier  years 
of  the  course  pursued  by  the  average  art  student,  to 
the  end  that  whether  he  goes  very  far  on  the  way  to 
high  attainment  or  not,  he  may  be  getting  something 
that  will  be  immediately  available  in  the  struggle  be- 
fore him  —  something,  too,  that  is  sure  to  be  wanted, 
and  that  from  the  point  of  view  of  either  individual 
interest  or  collective  advancement,  is  well  worth  do- 
ing. Is  it  not  pretty  clear  that  present  educational 
tendencies  are  all  in  this  direction,  and  that  the 
acceptance  of  the  vocational  aim  and  the  reckoning 

[6] 


THE  CLAIMS  OF  INDUSTRIAL  ART 

with  reasonable  expectations  in  the  matter  of  careers 
are  among  the  most  obvious  signs  of  the  times  in  all 
current  discussions  of  educational  affairs  ? 

To  present  the  claims  of  industrial  art  is  simply 
to  apply  this  principle  to  that  large  and  immensely 
attractive  phase  of  culture  which  we  designate  as  art; 
and  to  examine  these  claims  means  to  investigate  the 
connection  between  the  uplift  and  inspiration  for 
which  art  stands,  and  the  industrial  efficiency  which 
we  so  much  desire. 

Of  all  the  tweedle-dee  and  tweedle-dum  discussions 
in  which  stupid  and  unprofitable  argument  has  been 
wasted  since  the  world  began,  this  one  about  what 
constitutes  the  simon-pure  article  in  art,  as  distin- 
guished from  imitations,  is  surely  among  the  least 
profitable.  What  does  art  mean  to  anybody  but  the 
ability  to  make  something?  Whether  it  is  a  sight  or  a 
sound,  an  object  or  an  impression,  does  not  matter 
so  much,  only  something  is  made  that  serves  as  the 
means  of  expressing  a  definite,  possibly  a  conscious, 
purpose,  and  exciting  a  definite,  possibly  a  conscious, 
interest  ?  Are  there,  after  all,  any  more  than  these  two 
faculties  that  man  has  any  notion  of — to  know  some- 
thing and  to  be  able  to  do  something  ?  This  last  is 
art;  use  the  plural  number  and  nobody  makes  any 
fuss  about  it,  but  use  the  singular  number  and  begin 
the  word  with  a  capital,  and  you  have  trouble  enough 
on  your  hands. 

The  trouble  is  mostly  caused  by  unprofitable  hair- 
splitting. The  many  forms  and  shades  and  degrees 
of  creative  effort  in  the  world  are  part  and  parcel 
of  nature's  infinite  variety,  but  the  impulse  that  is 
the  compelling  cause  of  them  all  is  practically  one 
and  the  same ;  and  if  such  human  manifestations  of 

[7] 


THE  CLAIMS  OF  INDUSTRIAL  ART 

it  as  we  are  interested  in  at  present  are  worth  culti- 
vating, as  we  think  they  are,  there  are  excellent  rea- 
sons for  believing  that  they  are  to  be  most  profitably 
cultivated  at  that  fountain  head  which  we  call  art. 

Art  education,  then,  properly  understood  and  ap- 
plied, is  the  real  solvent  for  the  industrial  education 
problem ;  only  this  understanding  and  this  application 
must  be  something  real  and  practical,  as  the  vague 
generalization  about  the  supreme  importance  of  the 
art  element  in  all  higher  civilization  with  which  we 
are  reasonably  familiar,  certainly  is  not. 

We  all  know  well  enough,  for  example,  that  the 
apprentices  in  old  Ghirlandajo's  paint-shop  were 
not  only  made  of  much  the  same  clay,  and  were  prob- 
ably all  pretty  well  taught  in  much  the  same  way, 
although  one  of  them  was  ultimately  to  execute  the 
frescos  in  the  Sistine  Chapel,  while  the  others  were 
to  find  their  places  all  down  the  line  as  painters  of 
signs  and  symbols  of  all  sorts  and  degrees  of  excel- 
lence, but  all,  let  us  hope,  contributing  something  of 
interest  to  the  age  to  which  they  belonged. 

We  know,  too,  that  Leonardo  was  not  only  just  as 
honorably  employed,  but  that  he  was  exercising  ex- 
actly the  same  powers,  when  he  was  planning  water 
works  and  fortifications  as  when  he  was  painting 
Mona  Lisas  and  Last  Suppers ;  just  as  Fulton  and 
Morse  in  later  days  expended,  to  quite  as  good  pur- 
pose on  steamboats  and  telegraphs,  the  same  ingen- 
uity that  had  already  made  both  of  them  very  good 
portrait  painters.  We  know,  too,  that  Albrecht  Durer 
was  on  the  same  track — which  was  quite  the  right 
track — when  he  was  working  as  a  goldsmith,  as  when 
he  was  making  the  pictures  that  have  earned  him  his 
evangelistic  honors.  Some  of  us  even  go  so  far  as  to 

[3] 


THE  CLAIMS  OF  INDUSTRIAL  ART 

harbor  a  suspicion  that  Quentin  Matsys  and  all  his 
kind  were  quite  as  truly  artists,  with  all  that  the  term 
implies,  and  were  quite  as  well  employed  when  they 
were  doing  their  famous  blacksmithing,  as  when  they 
were  painting  their  rather  finicky  pictures. 

It  is  high  time  to  drop  these  stupid  and  unfair  dis- 
tinctions between  the  art  that  is  fine  and  that  which 
is  not,  and  to  recognize  frankly  the  truth  that  what 
we  call  the  art  impulse  is  simply  the  instinct  that  im- 
pels us  to  create  something ;  that  the  forms  which 
this  instinct  assumes  must  be  as  varied  as  our  natures, 
and  as  changeable  as  the  temper  and  the  needs  of 
humanity  itself. 

In  a  blind  and  groping  kind  of  way,  this  has  been 
perceived  all  along,  and  the  multiplication  of  art 
schools  and  the  conviction  that  has  inspired  the 
efforts  (largely  futile)  that  have  been  made  during 
the  last  thirty-five  years  to  make  art  instruction  an 
essential  part  of  general  education,  had  its  origin, 
and  still  finds  its  justification,  in  the  perception  of 
this  truth.  The  mistakes  that  have  been  made  in 
attempts  to  grasp  and  apply  this  principle  were  nat- 
ural enough,  and  were  perhaps  an  unavoidable  part 
of  the  experience  out  of  which  sounder  methods  are 
ultimately  to  be  evolved.  It  was  natural,  for  example, 
to  think  that  if  art  was  the  one  thing  needful,  the 
only  right  thing  to  do  was  to  teach  art,  as  this  is 
understood  by  the  painter  of  pictures,  and  teach  it 
abundantly  ;  the  theory  of  the  more  serious  minded 
being  that  although  for  the  vast  majority  of  those  bid- 
den to  the  feast  no  places  would  be  available  at  the 
table,  yet  even  the  crumbs  that  fell  from  so  august  a 
board  would  provide  more  nourishing  fare  for  the  dis- 
appointed ones  than  any  second  table  that  could  be 

[9] 


THE  CLAIMS  OF  INDUSTRIAL  ART 

set  for  their  benefit.  Strange  as  it  may  sound  today, 
I  myself  listened  to  this  line  of  reasoning,  presented 
in  almost  these  very  words,  during  my  student  days, 
and  believed  it  too,  as,  apparently,  great  numbers  of 
students  still  do. 

In  its  practical  working  out,  this  theory  has  result- 
ed in  something  like  this :  Art  schools  have  multi- 
plied indefinitely,  their  methods  copied  or  supposed 
to  be  copied  from  the  two  or  three  schools  in  Europe 
whose  names  have  become  familiar  to  us  through  the 
vogue  of  the  painters  who  had  studied  there ;  the  dom- 
inating feature  of  all  instruction  being,  of  course,  the 
life  class.  Indeed,  one  may  almost  say  that  art  educa- 
tion for  the  vast  majority  of  students  has  come  to 
mean  the  life  class,  the  whole  life  class,  and  nothing 
but  the  life  class. 

Everything  of  a  more  elementary  nature  is  treated 
mainly  as  a  preparation  for  this  class,  and  admission 
to  it  is  everywhere  regarded  as  almost  an  end  in  itself. 
How  far  this  mistake  has  been  carried  is  well  shown 
by  the  virtual  monopoly  of  school  honors  —  prizes, 
traveling  scholarships,  etc.  —  by  work  which  repre- 
sents nothing  after  all  but  patient  copying  of  the  nude 
human  form,  such  considerations  as  originality  in 
design,  of  intelligent  grasp  of  a  subject,  of  power  of 
imagination  or  skill  in  composition,  to  say  nothing  of 
adaptation  to  any  definite  purpose,  being  almost 
wholly  ignored.  There  have  been  in  recent  years 
many  well  meant  and  most  generous  efforts  made  to 
help  deserving  students  by  means  of  money  prizes 
large  enough  to  enable  them  to  spend  several  years 
in  European  study.  Nothing  could  be  better  than 
the  spirit  that  has  animated  these  gifts,  but  the  re- 
sults have  been  pitifully  meagre — enough  so  to  raise 

[10] 


THE  CLAIMS  OF  INDUSTRIAL  ART 

the  question  whether  they  do  not  do  more  harm  than 
good.  If  they  do,  it  is  largely  because  they  encour- 
age the  very  tendencies  that  are  most  hopeless  any- 
way, by  focussing  still  more  the  efforts  of  students  on 
the  things  that  they  will  never  do  very  well,  to  the 
neglect  of  those  in  which  they  might  attain,  if  dili- 
gently served,  the  most  triumphant  success. 

Now,  industrial  art  aims  to  get  a  little  closer  than 
that  to  the  situation  which  at  least  ninety-nine  out 
of  every  hundred  art  students  have  got  to  face  sooner 
or  later.  Moreover,  it  aims  to  cultivate  in  those  who 
are  to  do  the  real  work  of  the  world  an  attitude  toward 
that  work  that  shall  be  something  very  different  from 
that  induced  by  a  sense  of  disappointment  at  having 
failed  at  something  else.  To  those  who  think  about 
industry  in  the  right  way,  art  is  a  synonym  for  all  that 
is  uplifting  and  inspiring  in  the  work  of  human  hands, 
and  they  take  care  to  surround  the  pupil  who  is  at- 
tracted to  a  school  by  the  magic  of  that  wonderful 
little  word  with  influences  that  force  him  to  associate 
the  essence  of  the  qualities  which  this  word  expresses : 
not  with  pictures  and  statues  especially,  but  with  all 
sorts  of  objects  that  embody  the  idea  of  human  serv- 
ice, imaginative  and  other,  and  whose  production 
represents  in  any  marked  or  striking  way  the  result 
of  human  thought  and  care. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  art  museums  of  the  country 
are  mainly  dependent  upon  objects  of  industrial  art 
for  the  interest  of  their  collections  now,  and  all  that  is 
needed  is  a  franker  recognition  of  industrial  claims 
and  franker  acceptance  of  the  industrial  —  even  the 
commercial  —  aim.  For  even  where  we  admit  rather 
patronizingly  the  industrial  purpose  as  not  altogether 
degrading,  we  balk  at  "commercialism,"  and  are  de- 


THE  CLAIMS  OF  INDUSTRIAL  ART 

termined  that  whatever  else  an  artist  does,  he  must 
starve  or  forego  our  approval.  Now  this  is  all  just  as 
wrong  as  it  can  be.  The  commercial  spirit  which  we 
justly  hold  responsible  for  so  many  demoralizing  tend- 
encies is  bad  enough  certainly  and  probably  deserves 
on  the  whole  all  the  hard  things  that  are  said  about 
it ;  but  it  has  not  invaded  art,  nor  is  it  likely  to. 
There  is  too  much  incompatibility  there  for  that. 
On  the  other  hand,  nothing  would  do  so  much  for 
art  of  the  right  kind  as  a  little  genuine  promotion  on 
commercial  lines.  If  people  could  be  made  to  see,  for 
example,  how  much  more  permanent  was  the  inter- 
est that  attaches  to  good  native  hand-wrought  things 
that  smack  of  the  soil  of  particular  neighborhoods, 
and  reflect  something  of  the  character  and  some  of 
the  traditions  that  make  the  neighborhoods  them- 
selves worth  knowing ;  if  they  could  learn  how  much 
better  that  sort  of  thing  is  than  the  ready-made  stuff 
ground  out  at  wholesale  by  machinery  in  Oshkosh  to 
sell  as  cheaply  as  possible  in  Tallahassee,  that  is 
copied  from  some  tawdry  original  that  once  belonged 
to  some  palace  of  bankrupt  nobility  in  Europe,  but  is 
expected  to  help  furnish  the  home  of  a  working  man 
in  America, —  it  would  be  well  worth  while.  Incident- 
ally, I  think  we  should  applaud  and  not  disparage 
any  efforts  in  that  direction,  and  feel  that  the  more 
commercially  successful  they  are  the  better  it  is  for 
art.  Such  efforts  are  being  made  today,  and  the 
fact  that  they  are  made  is  one  of  the  most  hopeful 
signs  of  the  time.  How  many  village  and  fireside  in- 
dustries that  once  added  immensely  to  the  mental  as 
well  as  physical  comfort  of  rural  communities  here 
in  Eastern  America,  might  be  profitably  revived  if 
we  could  only  get  the  right  agencies  at  work.  They 

[M] 


THE  CLAIMS  OF  INDUSTRIAL  ART 

will  be  revived,  if  at  all,  at  the  touch,  not  of  a  pitying 
philanthropy,  or  of  commercialism  in  any  of  its  crude 
or  brutal  forms,  but  of  art. 

What  we  need  here  in  America,  more  perhaps  than 
anything  else,  is  a  diffusion  of  that  kind  of  culture 
that  inculcates  appreciation  of  whatever  is  centrally 
and  inherently  noble  and  beautiful,  and  develops  the 
kind  of  self-respect  that  is  possible  only  where  peo- 
ple have  this  kind  of  appreciation.  Mr.  Emerson 
never  said  anything  better  than  that  each  one  of  us, 
although  he  cannot  do  everybody  else's  work,  can  do 
something  better  than  anybody  else.  Let  him  learn 
to  do  that  thing  and  stick  to  it  as  if  it  were  the  best 
worth  doing  of  all  the  things  in  the  world.  But  let  him 
make  sure  first  that  it  is  something  worth  doing,  one 
of  the  safest  tests  of  which  is  to  find  out  whether  it  is 
anything  for  which  anybody  else  cares.  Art  has  come 
into  the  world  in  obedience  to  the  social  instinct,  its 
very  birth-cry  was  a  call  for  approval  and  enjoyment 
in  common,  and  that  is  why  its  greatest  triumphs  have 
always  been  achieved  by  work  that  could  not  exist 
without  a  public,  and  why  the  most  dismal  of  its  re- 
cent failures  are  due  to  the  extent  to  which  the  prin- 
ciple of  self-expression,  so  called,  has  been  over- 
worked. The  kind  of  art  that  we  need  is  that  which 
identifies  itself  most  readily  with  the  activities  and 
the  sympathies  that  are  alert  today. 

The  museum  and  the  school  of  art  should  preserve 
the  most  precious  memories  of  the  past,  certainly ; 
but  they  should  also  vitalize  the  activities  of  the 
present.  It  is  good  to  know  how  things  were  done  in 
times  very  different  from  our  own,  but  it  is  better  still 
to  learn  to  do  ever  better  and  better  the  things  that 
our  own  times  demand.  The  fascination  of  archaeol- 

C'3] 


THE  CLAIMS  OF  INDUSTRIAL  ART 

ogy  is  undoubted,  and  the  educational  value  of  a  rev- 
erent study  of  the  archaic  may  be  immense,  but  it  is 
easy  to  overdo  either  one  of  these  aims  to  the  neglect 
of  the  cultivation  of  taste  and  power  in  forms  that  are 
immediately  available  for  present  day  purposes.  Let 
us,  by  all  means,  have  the  learning  that  enables  us  to 
possess  in  imagination  the  flocks  of  Admetus  and  the 
products  of  Penelope's  loom,  but  let  us  keep  at  least 
one  eye  on  the  possibilities  of  wool  raising  and  wool 
manufacture  as  these  are  understood  and  applied  in 
this  twentieth  century  of  Christian  civilization. 

We  are  becoming  conscious  of  our  industrial  short- 
comings, and  beginning  to  realize  the  value  of  the 
knack  of  doing  things  that  is  slipping  away  from  us, 
and  we  are  seeking  to  rehabilitate  the  trades  by  means 
of  trade  schools.  We  are  on  the  right  track  in  this, 
of  course,  but  all  trade  instruction  that  is  thorough 
must  be  highly  specialized,  and  it  is  possible  that  the 
best  work  of  a  general  nature  that  we  shall  find  it 
possible  to  do,  even  on  lines  that  are  confessedly  and 
distinctly  industrial,  will  be  in  the  direction  of  diffus- 
ing and  promoting  a  knowledge  and  a  love  of  art ;  only 
to  be  vital  and  helpful,  this  knowledge  must  be  contin- 
ually associated  with  forms  of  expression  that  con- 
nect it  with  the  widest  possible  range  of  effort  and  the 
most  varied  forms  of  application. 

To  avoid  waste  of  energy,  as  well  as  to  ensure  the 
highest  efficiency,  this  association  of  aims  and  ideas 
should  inform  all  educational  effort  from  the  most 
elementary  to  the  most  advanced.  The  few  who  ex- 
plore the  mountain  peaks  of  attainment  will  be  all  the 
stronger  for  their  labors  in  the  lowlands,  while  every 
one  of  their  toiling  brethren  will  stand  a  good  chance 
of  finding  ample  opportunities  for  exercising  the  best 

[•4] 


THE  CLAIMS  OF  INDUSTRIAL  ART 

powers  he  has  in  the  wider  and,  incidentally,  much 
more  fertile  fields  that  stretch  all  the  way  up  on  the 
broader  slopes. 

Frankly,  then  my  gospel  of  industrial  education  is 
art  education  with  an  industrial  turn ;  and  my  guide 
toward  the  art  education  that  is  best  worth  having 
is  the  aim  to  do  something  that  somebody  wants.  The 
rare  and  exclusive  things  will  never  lack  admirers 
and  supporters,  but  constructive  effort  in  either  states- 
manship or  philanthropy  will,  if  it  is  wisely  directed, 
occupy  itself  in  developing  on  the  broadest  possible 
lines  the  power  on  which  all  noble  service  depends. 


THE  SCHOOL  OF  PRINTING  OF 
THE  NORTH  END  UNION,  BOSTON 


BOARD  OF  SUPERVISORS 

J.  STEARNS  GUSHING,  J.  S.  Gushing  &  Co.,  Norwood 
GEO.  H.  ELLIS,  Geo.  H.  Ellis  Co.,  272  Congress  St. 
J.  W.  PHINNEY,  American  Type  Founders  Co.,  Boston 
H.  G.  PORTER,  Smith  &  Porter  Press,  127  Federal  St. 
GEO.  W.  SIMONDS,  C.  H.  Simonds  &  Co.,  Congress  St. 
HENRY  P.  PORTER,  Oxford-Print,  148  High  St. 

JOSEPH  LEE,  Vice-Pres.  Massachusetts  Civic  League 
SAMUEL  F.  HUBBARD,  Supt.  North  End  Union 

A.  A.  STEWART,  Instructor 

'"THE  SCHOOL  OF  PRINTING  was  established  in  Jan- 
•*•  uary,  1900,  by  the  North  End  Union,  under  the 
supervision  of  a  number  of  leading  master  printers  of 
Boston.  It  has  had  to  demonstrate  its  purpose  in  prac- 
tical results,  and  is  gradually  being  recognized  by  those 
who  realize  the  important  need  in  the  trade  of  such  a 
method  of  technical  instruction. 

The  purpose  of  the  School  is  to  give  fundamental  and 
general  instruction  in  printing-office  work,  and  to  offer 
young  men,  through  a  system  of  indentured  apprentice- 
ship, an  opportunity  to  learn  the  things  which  each  year 
are  becoming  more  and  more  difficult  for  the  appren- 
tice to  obtain  in  the  restricted  and  specialized  conditions 
of  the  modern  workshop. 

The  course  of  study  embraces  book,  commercial,  and 
advertising  composition,  and  platen  press  work.  The 
School  is  supplied  with  hand  and  job  presses,  roman 
and  display  types  of  various  styles,  and  the  usual  furni- 
ture and  material  of  a  modern  printing  office.  The  hours 
are  identical  with  those  of  a  regular  workshop,  from 
7.40  A.M.  to  5.40  P.M.,  excepting  Saturday  afternoon. 

The  tuition  fee  for  one  year  is  $100.  Applicants  must 
be  sixteen  years  of  age  or  over. 

For  further  information  address  SAMUEL  F.  HUB- 
BARD,  20  Parmenter  Street,  Boston.  Telephone  Rich- 
mond 1069-1. 


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